Canada's hiring spree continues in November

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian economy created 42,600 jobs
in November, once again overshooting expectations in a sign of
resilience to the turmoil in the U.S. housing sector and
financial market disruption.

Statistics Canada said on Friday the strength was mainly
due to private-sector hiring in the services sector and in
natural resources. Manufacturing, hurt by a strong Canadian
dollar and weaker U.S. demand for exports, continued its slump.

Despite the heavy hiring, the jobless rate ticked up to 5.9
percent from a 33-year low of 5.8 percent in October, as 67,600
people were lured into the labor force, pushing the rate of
participation to a historic high.

The employment rate, which is the percentage of the working
age population that is employed, hit a record high at 63.8
percent.

"This number is actually a fair bit stronger than it looks
on the surface ... Most importantly, you're actually seeing
private sector job creation again. We really didn't see much of
that over the past eight months," said Eric Lascelles, chief
economics and rates specialist at TD Securities.

"On the one hand, yes, the U.S. economy is quite soft with
downside risks and the credit crunch is ongoing, but boy, the
Canadian dollar is not nearly as threatening as it was a while
ago," he said.

The November report followed three straight months of
stronger-than-expected employment growth. In October, the
economy added nearly six times the number of jobs forecast.

Analysts had forecast, on average, job gains of 10,000 in
November and an unchanged unemployment rate of 5.9 percent.
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